10 million sold to consumers or sold to retail? Wasnt it 14 milion shipped by that time?

Let's cut the confusion at the root before the thread starts getting out of hand. They were predicting 11 million shipped PS3s to retailers during the current fiscal year. Literally what I just said, without regard to what was shipped before this fiscal year.

So far, they have shipped about 2 million in the first 6 months of the fiscal year. That means they'd have to ship 9 million during the last half of the fiscal year.

If they're in fact reducing their forecast to 10 million instead of 11 million, that means, of course, that they'd have to ship 8 million to retailers in the last 6 months (until 31st of March 2008).

PS: In the previous fiscal year they shipped 3.6 million to retailers. That means that with the new forecast, they'd have to have shipped 13.6 million by March 2008 (meaning around 12-13 million sold to consumers).

Oh ok, thanks for clearing that up :D

Blu-Ray's biggest opportunity was to deliver a killing blow to HD-DVD with the PS3 before the average consumer cared about either format; had the PS3 sold at a similar rate to the Wii or PS2 this would have happened. The unfortunate problem is that the existance of Blu-Ray inside the PS3 is one of the main reasons why the PS3 can not sell like the PS2.

Christmas 2008/2009 are really when the HD movie products are going to start being important to the typical consumer and they will likey be given the option of buying a $100-$200 HD-DVD player, $200-$300 Blu-Ray Player,  $300-$400 PS3 with Blu-Ray or a $400 Dual Format player. Now I could be wrong, but I suspect that enough people will either not see the value in the Blu-Ray format or will anticipate an evenutal dual format world and buy into the much cheaper HD-DVD players early on.

Blu-Ray's biggest opportunity was to deliver a killing blow to HD-DVD with the PS3 before the average consumer cared about either format; had the PS3 sold at a similar rate to the Wii or PS2 this would have happened. The unfortunate problem is that the existance of Blu-Ray inside the PS3 is one of the main reasons why the PS3 can not sell like the PS2.

Christmas 2008/2009 are really when the HD movie products are going to start being important to the typical consumer and they will likey be given the option of buying a $100-$200 HD-DVD player, $200-$300 Blu-Ray Player,  $300-$400 PS3 with Blu-Ray or a $400 Dual Format player. Now I could be wrong, but I suspect that enough people will either not see the value in the Blu-Ray format or will anticipate an evenutal dual format world and buy into the much cheaper HD-DVD players early on.

Check the figures. The PS3 did 100k in the week in question - which was more than the PS2 & 360 - but not the Wii (according to VGChartz of course).

Problem is, now two weeks later - sales have dropped to half the figure. PS2 back on top, although still outselling the 360 (but not my much). This weeks sales will be real interesting. 

blu-ray's best time to capitolize on the market was early on when both players were expensive. with the slow start of the ps3 they failed to really pull ahead of hd-dvd to make themselves look like a true winner. right now is the absolute best time for hd-dvd when they have a significantly cheaper player on the market. i'm guessing that have about a 1 year window to try and claim victory before blu-ray comes down in cost enough to neglect that advantage. So really, i see it as anyones game still but blu-ray lost out on round 1, let's see how round 2 goes.

Stalement...is that an overstatement? Since they claimed "Victory" like 10 months ago? Just a question...

Here is what Sony did.  As of fiscal year '07 they stated they sold 3.6 million units and shipped 5.5 million.  They redefined the terms in their financial report to literally mean they shipped 3.6 million and they produced 5.5 million, and they called "shipped" units sold, since they were ordered by retail, but they added a lot of confusion when they considered manufactured units shipped.  They rationalized this by saying those units were shipped to warehouses, but it was obviously intended to mislead.

At the end of Q1 FY08, Sony stated that they were switching to the standard definition of 'shipped' -- meaning they 'shipped' units to stores.  This is what console makers typically do, and it has become common practice to use 'shipped' and 'sold' interchangably because a manufacturer ships ordered (sold to retailer) consoles.

Their sleight of hand trick here, however, is that 1.9 million consoles were unaccounted for and magically added to their total 'shipped' figures.  IE: they redefined their terms so they could ship 1.9 million units that *were already* shipped according to FY reports.

This means Sony, who did not fix its projections down to 3.6 million "shipped" for FY07 to be in line with its new definition, would be at 14.6 million total units shipped at the end of FY08 if they meet their 11 million unit goal.  Reporters and many investors will not realize this, and will think Sony should be at 16.5 million units shipped total at the end of FY08.  Inventive sleight of hand, but not exactly the actions of a respectable and strong company. 

What's this about Stinger saying the format war doesn't matter?  The PS3 was delayed for about a year, according to Sony, because of the Blu diodes.  The console has such expensive cost, in part, due to its BD drive.  They basically took their flagship electronics product and tied it to Blu Ray, because they believed it could catapult Sony's success for at least the next decade.

In heindsight, even Sony seems to admit putting a BD drive on the PS3 was a huge mistake.